Monthly Archives: June 2015

The colour side of a postcard Jim McPherson prepared in 2012 as a handout; artwork taken from cover of “Goddess Gambit”; artwork by Verne Andru

Jim McPherson, the creator/writer of the Phantacea Mythos, is seeing faces again. He’s not alone either. The folks behind Fortean Times are, too:. Except they cheat on the cover of FT 327: http://pics.gjovaag.com/FT/large/FT327.jpg

Slightly altered cover from Fortean Times #129; more covers are here: http://www.theguardian.com/media/gallery/2013/nov/11/fortean-times-covers#img-7

And that derives almost entirely from the celebrity celery pandered to by today’s mainstream media, genre television, video games and society’s seemingly resultant need for instant gratification to go along with a severely reduced attention span.

Here’s the Pegg quote that tops the article:

“I’m very much a self-confessed fan of science-fiction and genre cinema. But part of me looks at society as it is now and thinks we’ve been infantilized by our own taste.” — Simon Pegg

And here’s the writer’s gravy atop the article’s meat and potatoes:

“… more modern fans of genre fiction want to read … “realistic” heroes through a childish mindset.

“And that’s part of what Simon Pegg was griping about — even when presented in an adult manner, genre has a way of being pre-chewed and regurgitated back in such a way that renders much of the nuance moot — signifiers such as brutal violence and grey morals reinterpreted as being cool instead of troubling — making the end product even more childish than the sanitized basic version.”

Poster to accompany Helios on the Moon press release; utilizes cover from both Phantacea Revisited graphic novels and the three full-length novels making up the Launch 1980 story cycle

Which echoes Point #4 in the pre-Mithramas Mistletoe Miscellanea posting, the reference being to two of the Gun Porn TV shows made in Vancouver that have since been renewed:

“As to using arrows as implements of torture, using arrows for anything except killing and target practise, there are such things as arteries. Pierce a Captain Boomerang where Arrow hit him, evidently just because he deserved it, and, sorry Flash, it’s not a joking matter.”

So, go to any of the lynx highlighted in blue above and spend some quiet, unhurried, but satisfying time having a read or re-read.

Ian Bateson’s full colour, wraparound cover for The War of the Apocalyptics, 2009

Just don’t doubt for a minute that Jim McPherson is above infantilizing his characters, if hopefully not his readers:

In the midst of the mad, the dead, and the dying squatted Mars Bellona. His mentality reduced to that of a low-grade simpleton, the presumption of immortality manifestly did not preclude the onset of insanity. The once tremendously powerful Apocalyptic was playing toy samurai with an even more demented Lord Tornado.
“So sorry, Bellona‑sama. I killed your man first.”
“Seppuku-fie yourself, Tornado-san. I killed you before you killed me.”

Jim McPherson, the creator/writer of the Phantacea Mythos, will be a guest at this Sunday’s VANCOUVER COMIC & TOY SHOW #4: http://canadiancomics.net/.

Being a guest has its privileges so he’ll also be manning a full table containing just about everything still available for purchase from Phantacea Publications.

Helios, with his ‘holocaster’, and the She-Sphinx (All of Incain) , with Thunder and Lightning Lord Yajur (Lord Order) sneaking up on them; artwork by Ricardo Sandoval taken from front cover of print version of Helios on the Moon

Some showy prices, too. $10.00 each for many of the full-length novels and all three graphic novels, $5.00 (bags included) for original comics from the 1970s (Phantacea 1-4 only), $5.00 for a couple of the mini-novels. Not to be beaten with a stick … or anything else, por favor.

It’s at Vancouver’s Croatian Cultural Centre, 16th and Commercial, from 11 a.m to 5 p.m. Admission is $5.00. Go to the Canadian comics site and scroll down for, surprise, surprise, an authorized shot of, um, the author.

In order to avoid offending the eye, and thus necessitating it having to be plucked out, it’s about the only photo he allows to be seen in public places besides the bottom of one of his sandals on his personal Facebook page.

Double-click to enlarge; the better to read if you do. Artwork is from the two Phantacea Revisited graphic novels.

Cover artwork for “Helios on the Moon” (the full-length, multiple character, mosaic novel that in effect marks the culmination of Phantacea Phase One) is by Ricardo Sandoval, 2014.

Poster to accompany Helios on the Moon press release; utilizes cover from both Phantacea Revisited graphic novels and the three full-length novels making up the Launch 1980 story cycle

In the Launch 1980 promo, artwork from the cover of the graphic novel, “Phantacea Revisited 1: The Damnation Brigade“, is by Ian Bateson, 2012, whereas artwork from the latest graphic novel, “Phantacea Revisited 2: Cataclysm Catalyst“, is by Verne Andru, 2014.